But ah, for the voice of my own dear maid,
A-singing adown Strath-Terry!
CHAPTER XIII.
INDUCEMENTS.
Ronald's friendship with the hospitable widow and his acquaintanceship with those three boon-companions of hers grew apace; and many a merry evening they all of them had together in the brilliant little parlour, Ronald singing his own or any other songs without stint, the big skipper telling elaborately facetious Highland stories, the widow bountiful with her cigars and her whisky-toddy. And yet he was ill, ill at ease. He would not admit to himself, of course, that he rather despised these new acquaintances—for were they not most generous and kind towards him?—nor yet that the loud hilarity he joined in was on his part at times a trifle forced. Indeed, he could not very well have defined the cause of this disquietude and restlessness and almost despair that was present to his consciousness even when the laugh was at its loudest and the glasses going round most merrily. But the truth was he had begun to lose heart in his work. The first glow of determination that had enabled him to withstand the depression of the dull days and the monotonous labour had subsided now. The brilliant future the Americans had painted for him did not seem so attractive. Meenie was away; perhaps never to be met with more; and the old glad days that were filled with the light of her presence were all gone now and growing ever more and more distant. And in the solitude of the little room up there in the Port Dundas Road—with the gray atmosphere ever present at the windows, and the dull rumble of the carts and waggons without—he was now getting into a habit of pushing aside his books for a while, and letting his fancies go far afield; insomuch that his heart seemed to grow more and more sick within him, and more and more he grew to think that somehow life had gone all wrong with him.
There is in Glasgow a thoroughfare familiarly known as Balmanno Brae. It is in one of the poorer neighbourhoods of the town; and is in truth rather a squalid and uninteresting place; but it has the one striking peculiarity of being extraordinarily steep, having been built on the side of a considerable hill. Now one must have a powerful imagination to see in this long, abrupt, blue-gray thoroughfare—with its grimy pavements and house-fronts, and its gutters running with dirty water—any resemblance to the wide slopes of Ben Clebrig and the carolling rills that flow down to Loch Naver; but all the same Ronald had a curious fancy for mounting this long incline, and that at the hardest pace he could go. For sometimes, in that little room, he felt almost like a caged animal dying for a wider air, a more active work; and here at least was a height that enabled him to feel the power of his knees; while the mere upward progress was a kind of inspiriting thing, one always having a vague fancy that one is going to see farther in getting higher. Alas! there was but the one inevitable termination to these repeated climbings; and that not the wide panorama embracing Loch Loyal and Ben Hope and the far Kyle of Tongue, but a wretched little lane called Rotten Row—a double line of gloomy houses, with here and there an older-fashioned cottage with a thatched roof, and with everywhere pervading the close atmosphere an odour of boiled herrings. And then again, looking back, there was no yellow and wide-shining Strath-Terry, with its knolls of purple heather and its devious rippling burns, but only the great, dark, grim, mysterious city, weltering in its smoke, and dully groaning, as it were, under the grinding burden of its monotonous toil.
As the Twelfth of August drew near he became more and more restless. He had written to Lord Ailine to say that, if he could be of any use, he would take a run up to Inver-Mudal for a week or so, just to see things started for the season; but Lord Ailine had considerately refused the offer, saying that everything seemed going on well enough, except, indeed, that Lugar the Gordon setter was in a fair way of being spoilt, for that, owing to Ronald's parting injunctions, there was not a man or boy about the place would subject the dog to any kind of chastisement or discipline whatever. And it sounded strange to Ronald to hear that he was still remembered away up there in the remote little hamlet.
On the morning of the day before the Twelfth his books did not get much attention. He kept going to the window to watch the arrivals at the railway station opposite, wondering whether this one or that was off and away to the wide moors and the hills. Then, about mid-day, he saw a young lad bring up four dogs—a brace of setters, a small spaniel, and a big brown retriever—and give them over in charge to a porter. Well, human nature could not stand this any longer. His books were no longer thought of; on went his Glengarry cap; and in a couple of minutes he was across the road and into the station, where the porter was hauling the dogs along the platform.
'Here, my man, I'll manage the doggies for ye,' he said, getting hold of the chains and straps; and of course the dogs at once recognised in him a natural ally and were less alarmed. A shambling, bow-legged porter hauling at them they could not understand at all; but in the straight figure and sun-tanned cheek and clear eye of the newcomer they recognised features familiar to them; and then he spoke to them as if he knew them.
'Ay, and what's your name, then?—Bruce, or Wallace, or Soldier?—but there'll no be much work for you for a while yet. It's you, you two bonnie lassies, that'll be amongst the heather the morn; and well I can see ye'll work together, and back each other, and just set an example to human folk. And if ye show yourselves just a wee bit eager at the beginning o' the day—well, well, well, we all have our faults, and that one soon wears off. And what's your names, then?—Lufra, or Nell, or Bess, or Fan? And you, you wise auld chiel—I'm thinking ye could get a grip o' a mallard that would make him imagine he had got back into his mother's nest—you're a wise one—the Free Kirk elder o' the lot'—for, indeed, the rest of them were all pawing at him, and licking his hands, and whimpering their friendship. The porter had to point out to him that he, the porter, could not stand there the whole day with 'a wheen dogs;' whereupon Ronald led these new companions of his along to the dog-box that had been provided for them, and there, when they had been properly secured, the porter left him. Ronald could still talk to them however, and ask them questions; and they seemed to understand well enough: indeed, he had not spent so pleasant a half-hour for many and many a day.